in which I vent my spleen at a lot of non-parents out there

[sistawendy]

The other night, thanks to my recent ick, I was awake around 0200 and caught my son watching what was probably the news on his laptop. He was supposed to be up in six hours so he could help his mother move. He was surprised at the lateness of the hour, even though he can see the living room clock from all points of his bed.

He does this all the time. The news is his Aspie fixation, and has been for years. It's part of the reason why he's done so poorly in school, and was so useless to his mother that she sent him to me. And I told him so, right then and there; I even managed to keep my voice down, because it was 0200 on a weeknight and I share walls with lots of neighbors. (I've been trying to get him to keep his voice down. He has the Aspie inability to detect when he's shouting or mumbling.)

The frequency of these recurrences and the length of time they've been going on makes me want to tear my hair out. Telling me, "Getting mad won't help anything" won't help anything. You haven't had to spend years watching the person whose welfare & future you bear ultimate responsibility for perform self-sabotage over and over and over and not learn and not learn. Parenting my son makes electrolysis on the scrotum look like a walk in the park.

And you're quite possibly wrong: my son has only a vague idea of just how bad his situation is. Communicating my intense unhappiness about that might administer the clue he needs. He also has a reduced capacity to imagine other people's emotional states, which really doesn't help such communication; see Asperger's above.

I recently told him, "Imagine a world with no mommy. Or no me." The deer-eyed "Whoah!" I got in reply told me all I needed to know. Most kids naturally have one foot in that world already by his age and are walking in that direction all by themselves, but he found the idea terrifying and utterly alien.

Said one of you, "I [followed some non-linear path to self-sufficiency and fulfillment]." You had a plan, you executed, you found out it sucked, and you started over. On behalf of decent parents everywhere, I say without a trace of sarcasm, good for you! But that's not what my son is doing. He's got some vague, airy, unrealistic outline of plan in his head, and his execution has been and continues to be feckless. It would almost be comical if he weren't my son. There is a vast gulf between him and you. I know him way better than you do; I think you should take my word on this and everything else about him.

"Oh, he'll figure it out eventually," many people say. Yeah, probably he will. But what if he doesn't, ever? Do I get to take all your stuff? That wouldn't come close to adequate compensation, no matter how much stuff you have or how much I want it. And in the meantime, I want my life back. I want my space back. I want the weight of worry off my shoulders. You know, that weight you've never felt in your life.

Attention non-parents: you don't get it. Don't forget that. This is all a long way of saying, shut the fuck up.

ETA: I just read this to him. He points out, typically, that it wasn't just the news he was looking at with his laptop. He was also wiki surfing. (Hello, Aspie inability to grasp the bigger picture!) He also reminded me about the conflict over his med dosage; at least he's learned that lesson.

Comments

[m-cobweb.livejournal.com]

Ha. I did everything right, and I am neither self-sufficient nor particularly fulfilled. There's not as much leeway on this as some people think.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

You had parents who were profoundly, horrifyingly misguided at best. If a younger you were standing in front of me the only thing I could think of to tell her would be, "Run!"

[m-cobweb.livejournal.com]

Heh. I like your phrasing and am going to borrow it when I can.

But I was National Merit, and got two degrees, and kept trying to find employment I could thrive in till medication side-effects made it unfeasible for me to work real jobs. If I weren't married, I shudder to think where and how I might be now.

I realize this is all less than reassuring. Will shut up now. Just saying that there aren't shortcuts to surviving in this economy no matter what your son may think.

[eeyorerin]

It is hard and it sucks and sometimes I am terrified that C will be just like that in ten or eleven years. (He is not Aspie, but I worry that he will end up addicted to something given the wonderful genetic legacy from both of his biological parents.)

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Parenting: a thousand different ways to freak out, all the time, for years. I have no idea what to do in your situation, but I have every confidence in you. You've been stellar so far, under some trying circumstances.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I have a cousin and a sister-in-law, both in their thirties, who have not yet figured it out eventually. Both are heading towards very lonely, unfulfilling lives that they dislike intensely, and neither of their parents have gotten their lives and space back. Some people don't figure it out. I don't think some people can.

[bork.livejournal.com]

"Attention non-parents: you don't get it. Don't forget that. This is all a long way of saying, shut the fuck up."


As a non-parent, I shall nod in agreement instead.

[tylik.livejournal.com]

My sense of what exactly is up with your son is drawn only from what you write here - and it sounds frustrating as hell. Now that he's supposedly an adult, are you more or less on your own with it?

The framing of questions like "how bad is bad?" and "how do you make comparisons between two individuals" seem pretty unmanageably difficult. I barely know what to expect from a more or less typical teenager (my sister and I spend a lot of time on the phone marveling that T seems to be pretty darn normal - if on the bright side - and that a lot of the time neither of us really know how to relate to this in terms of our own teenage years. Luckily, there are other ways to relate.)

I do spend a lot of time wondering about the parenting side of things in the case of my brother - but again, it's not like there's any doubt about the parenting quality involved. I just have no real way of understanding the effects of my brother's mental health issues were he not a) stuck with awful parents and b) pampered and indulged and given a playboy lifestyle on a platter. It would probably help if I could spend more time with him without wanting to wring his neck.

[alton-lust.livejournal.com]

It seems frustrating that all the doctors and teachers and aids who were able to train and help you and your son better cope with his Asperger's while he was young just dry up once he becomes a teen. Damn it.